


companions on the road

by MathiasHyde



Category: Tennis no Oujisama | Prince of Tennis
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-16
Updated: 2017-07-13
Packaged: 2018-08-15 08:33:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 13,985
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8049457
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MathiasHyde/pseuds/MathiasHyde
Summary: A collection of random Higa-centric ficlets.





	1. Chapter 1

When Kite had approached him and Shiranui about joining the tennis club as he was building up a team of people who had been doing martial arts since their youth, Aragaki had to admit he’d had a few preconceptions about what sort of people would be in there besides them.

He was very wrong.

Aragaki looked up from adjusting his racquet strings to stare across the courts to their esteemed captain.

Kite Eishirou. At first glance he’d seemed like the type of person Aragaki had expected. Disciplined, extremely skilled, ruthless and easy to respect… at least until Aragaki had seen the glint in his eyes, heard him talking about his pet parrot and seen him threatening his regulars with vegetables.

But it was difficult to remember those last points when he saw Kite at practice, hitting balls with a deft precision that most of them could only dream of.

He looked next to Tanishi Kei, who was grumbling as he practised his serve. Aragaki watched him do the leading jumps before launching himself into the air, the ball hitting the ground with less force that normal. How many times had Tanishi hit the big bang serve? A lot, judging from the sweat on his face. He liked Tanishi-senpai. He was blunt and sometimes too sensitive, but he was a nice man and worked hard.

It helped that he happily ate Aragaki’s failed baking creations without complaint and seemed to enjoy them when the others wouldn’t touch them.

Kai-senpai was supervising first years, though Aragaki wasn’t sure if that was such a good idea. He couldn’t fault Kai-senpai though, even if he ruffled Aragaki’s hair a bit too often and was a bit unreliable to be a vice-captain.

His explanations on improvements to others weren’t the most clear either, but the first years would surely muddle through enough. And there were other senpai who would have been much worse in the position.

Speaking of which… Chinen-senpai was staring in his direction… or was he staring at Shiranui standing next to him? There was an odd, vacant smile on the tall man’s face and Shiranui was oddly stiff next to him. Staring at his doubles partner, then.

He didn’t have a lot to do with Chinen, on the basis that he tended to be around Shiranui most of the time, and his best friend definitely didn’t like the other man. Chinen was eccentric, though Aragaki had seen him carefully tending the gardening bed near the tennis courts before and after practice every day, so he couldn’t be that bad of a person.

Aragaki was just glancing around to find the distinctive blonde hair of his last senpai when he felt the rush of air of someone appearing behind him and arms wrapping around him.

He didn’t even need to look around to know who it was.

“Kouichi, you’ve been staring at people a lot today. Are you collecting data on everyone to try and beat them?” Hirakoba asked teasingly. “I hope you’re collecting mine as well.”

Aragaki stiffened as he felt Hirakoba’s breath on his neck and fingers sneaking under the hem of his shirt. Words failed him a bit and he looked pleadingly to Shiranui who was dutifully ignoring them. He was going to kick his ass after practice.

Thankfully he was saved by their ever watchful captain, who shouted across the courts, “Hirakoba-kun! Go practice with Chinen-kun.”

“Yes, yes,” Hirakoba said with a sigh, pulling away almost reluctantly and Aragaki let himself breathe again as the fingers left his skin. “Make sure to watch me closely,” he said cheerfully before he hurried off.

Aragaki stared after him, at the blond hair that was drawn back into a ponytail today and the way his jersey moved as he took a running jump at Chinen, the tall man staggering as he was grabbed onto.

Hirakoba Rin was definitely the most troublesome senpai.

“Gakki, you’re blushing,” Shiranui said helpfully and Aragaki felt his cheeks get hotter.

“Shut up. Let’s get back to practice already.”

Shiranui patted him on the shoulder before he moved to head to the other side of the court. Aragaki sighed.

It would have been so much easier if the team was how he’d first imagined them to be.

Less fun though, he was at least willing to reluctantly admit.


	2. Chapter 2

It had become almost a ritual for Chinen to come over to Hirakoba’s house after training on Saturday, to squash himself into Hirakoba’s room and for both of them to study together.

Kite approved of it, saying that Chinen was a good influence on getting Hirakoba to focus on his studies, leaving him free to run after the other regulars on their team (mostly Kai) and ensure they were actually doing something productive as well.

Hirakoba sighed and turned the page of his english textbook, resting his chin on his hand and he stared down at the words. And then he glanced up at Chinen who was at least 5 pages ahead of him and dutifully writing things down neatly into his notebook.

Hirakoba doodled a spiral in the corner of his notes and sighed again.

His standing fan was buzzing in the corner and his windows were wide open and he could hear the soft sounds of his wind chimes, but it was still too hot and sticky in his room. The stray hairs that hadn’t quite managed to be pulled back into a ponytail were sticking to his neck and if Chinen didn’t have the tendency to stare with his usual weird intensity, Hirakoba probably would have giving up and just stripped off his clothes ages ago.

The fact that Chinen was sitting too close and was letting off heat as he always did, didn’t help matters either.

He resisted the urge to kick him to vent his feelings.

“Answer this question for me, Chinen,” Hirakoba said, pushing his book across the table at him.

It took far too depressingly short of a time for Chinen to write the answer in, barely even looking at it before he pushed it back. He wondered vaguely if the english teacher had assigned Chinen extension work to do.

Hirakoba gave it all of five more minutes before he gave up, scooting around the table to squash up next to Chinen. It was still hot and sticky, but it was worth it to see Chinen’s hand still.

“Hey, Hiroshi…” Hirakoba said, flashing a winning smile up at him. There was no verbal answer from Chinen, but he turned to look at him, a scrunching up between his eyebrows. “Let’s do something else, studying is boring.”

There was a long silence and for a moment Hirakoba actually thought that he might have convinced Chinen and wouldn’t need to go to further measures.

“You have split ends.”

That… was not what he was expecting.

Hirakoba fluffed up and pulled back, drawing himself up a little. “I do not!”

Chinen reached out to tug at a lock of Hirakoba’s hair, leaning down so he could peer at it, his breath hot on Hirakoba’s face and making him frown more.

“You do. Lots of them. You’re dyeing your hair too much.”

It was childish, he knew it, but he punched Chinen in the arm, using the other male’s shoulder to push himself up. “Your eyesight needs to be checked,” he snapped, even though he knew perfectly well that Chinen had superb eyesight, better than his own even with contacts in.

Still, it was gratifying to see Chinen frown and rub at his arm a bit even as he went off in a huff.

“Where are you going?” Chinen asked, twisting around to look at him go.

Hirakoba paused at the door and considered him. “To get a drink.” Something sweet and cold sounded lovely. “You just get water for the comment about my hair.”

Chinen looked at him for a long moment. “Ice?”

“None for you.” Hirakoba flipped his hair at Chinen and huffed out of his room. He was also going to stand with the fridge door open for a while as well, but Chinen didn’t need to know that.


	3. Chapter 3

It was inevitable that pets would come up as a conversation topic at some point in their teammateship. It was a safe topic, something they all enjoyed talking about and didn’t involve Kite’s strange gouya garden or training.

They all knew about Hirakoba-senpai’s sizeable tank of fish and there had been many detours on their team shopping trips to the pet store for Hirakoba to buy new food and look at decorations.

Aragaki knew that Shiranui had been pleased when Hirakoba had taken his advice that one time to decorate his tank with a sunken ship that one of his fish apparently enjoyed hiding in. Shiranui had been less pleased when Chinen had gifted Hirakoba with a skull to add to the sunken ship scenery and had insisted on photos after.

The decorations seemed to change every few weeks, though every photo that Hirakoba showed them now, he did notice the skull from Chinen sitting inconspicuously in the corner.

They also all knew about Kite’s pet parakeet, though Aragaki hadn’t met it yet. According to panicked whispers from Kai-senpai though, it did speak and it had threatened both him and Hirakoba from the shadows with gouya.

Chinen-senpai occasionally updated them on his supposed pet, though it was just a spider that lived in the garden near the tennis courts and he’d let stay there. The web it was building was quite impressive and occasionally he’d seen Chinen dropping flies into it. Shiranui had spotted it once too and asked him how he thought Chinen was catching the flies.

He’d asked Chinen-senpai about the spider once, only to have to listen to the tale of how he had watched it liquify a fly that had flown into its web and how this was the second generation spider now.

He hadn’t asked again after that.

Aragaki hadn’t made any attempt to let them know about his own pet rabbit, even though he kept his phone wallpaper as a photo of her and Shiranui had seen both the rabbit and the wallpaper on a regular basis.

He might be willing to introduce her to Tanishi-senpai one day, trusting the well-hearted man to actually pet her gently. He thought Chinen-senpai would be alright, but he was worried the strange man might also tug at her ears too much.

Kai-senpai, if he was honest with himself, was so much like a dog sometimes, he worried he might eat any sort of rabbit that came across his path. Hirakoba-senpai seemed mostly uninterested in pets besides his own and Kite-buchou… Aragaki glanced at the gouya garden sitting innocently outside the tennis courts, and then to said captain who was on the other side of the courts at that moment, talking to Kai.

Aragaki was on his phone at the start of lunch that day, messaging his mother about picking up a new bag of pellets on the way home from school. He didn’t glance up as he heard footsteps approaching - probably either a classmate, or Shiranui coming to fetch him for lunch, they were meant to be having a team lunch today as one of Kite’s many initiatives for team building… - finishing off his message instead.

He just closed out of the app as he felt the usual hug from the back that made him automatically stiffen up, Hirakoba’s nose prodding against his cheek and he heard the older male laugh quietly at his reaction.

One day he’d stop reacting and Hirakoba would get bored of it. That was the working theory, anyway.

“Cute bunny,” Hirakoba said, looking at his screen and Aragaki quickly switched off his phone and put it on his lap.

Hirakoba didn’t looked fazed by that at all though his arms tightened around him slightly. “Is it yours?”

His senpai being this clingy in the classroom was making his face burn and Aragaki reluctantly nodded. Hirakoba hummed thoughtfully and petted him on the head.

“How strangely fitting for you. A cute pet for a cute owner.”

The hand moved to pat him on the cheek and then he had pulled away and Aragaki let himself sigh a little in relief.

“Come on, then, get your lunch. Team meeting time.”

Hirakoba moved so quickly to the door, if he didn’t know better Aragaki might have almost thought he used shukuchiho. He smiled expectantly at Aragaki and he sighed again, reaching into his bag to pull out his lunch before following him.

He wondered why it hadn’t been Shiranui to come and collect him like it normally was. … He was going to kill him.


	4. Chapter 4

Aragaki doesn’t know what to do when he opens his shoe locker that afternoon on his way to training and finds a letter sitting on his outdoor shoes.

He ends up panicking - the space around him is starting to get busy, so he shoves it in his pocket, changes his shoes and hurries over to the tennis courts.

The calm familiarity of the tennis club house is almost enough to let him forget about it, even with Tanishi-senpai and Hirakoba-senpai making snippy comments to each other and Chinen-senpai already leaving the clubhouse, mumbling under his breath about needing to check on his plants.

“Ooh, Aragaki, what’s this?”

He freezes and looks down to see Kai-senpai picking up the letter that seemed to have fallen out of his pocket. Kai is already starting to open it and he snatches it away to hold it protectively against his chest. He notices the surprise and slight confusion on his senpai’s face and he can almost see the imaginary dog ears drooping as he stands there. But Aragaki holds firm.

“Oi, Aragaki got a love letter, Rin!”

Aragaki silently groans as the call sparks the interest of the one senpai he really doesn’t need to have knowing about this, especially since Hirakoba bee-lines straight over and hangs over his shoulder to look.

“Oh he’s growing up so fast,” Hirakoba says and he laughs as Aragaki elbows him in the side. “I hope you’re going to read it and reply. It’s impolite not to,” he adds on.

“You don’t reply to half the stuff you get,” Kai says and Hirakoba shrugs.

“I’ve never said I’m polite.”

There’s a long pause before they can hear Kite calling for them and Aragaki breathes a sigh of relief as the club room is quickly emptied and he’s left alone. He doesn’t think Kite will be too annoyed if he explains it and Aragaki carefully opens the letter, reading it as he toes off his shoes.

He doesn’t recognise the name, even though he tries multiple readings for the kanji there as if that will ring a bell. She does mention that she’s admired his tennis skills and how he comes across… surely that’s illogical though?! Liking someone without ever talking to them?

Though he supposes that Kite-buchou and Hirakoba-senpai get enough of those sorts of people. Kai-senpai… he suspects that either Kite or Hirakoba dispose of any confessions he might get in his shoe locker or desk.

He doesn’t know what to do and Aragaki stares at the letter for a while longer.

It would be impolite not to reply… he knows that, but…

He was going to have to ask his senpai for advice.

—

He goes to Kite first; because he needs to apologise for being late to practice and to explain the situation.

Kite looks at him, his expression unreadable behind his glasses, though Aragaki can see a slight raising of his eyebrow as the story goes on.

He thinks he knows what the answer will be. Kite has never, to Aragaki’s knowledge, accepted any requests for dates or any confessions. His tennis has always been his responsibility, though it was also common knowledge that looking after Kai-senpai was practically a full time job for Kite as well.

“Did she approach you herself?”

“No. I got a letter.”

Kite looks unimpressed and shakes his head, turning his attention to the second years who are lightly warming up in front of him. “She’s not worth your time. Nationals are next month, focus on them.”

—

He goes to Tanishi-senpai second, mostly because the bigger man has obliterated his opponent in the series of short matches, even his return shots too powerful for the opponent to hit.

“What would you do, senpai?” he asks and Tanishi looks thoughtful.

He doesn’t know if Tanishi has ever had a date or a confession. He knows the other man only really hangs out with Chinen if he’s not with the rest of the team and his work at his family restaurant otherwise keeps him busy.

Perhaps he’s just worried Hirakoba and Kai will make fun of him if he lets the rest of the club know if he gets a girl confessing to him…

“I’d say yes! And you should come to my restaurant for the date.”

The grin is huge and Aragaki decides that’s a terrible idea. No doubt the whole of the tennis regulars would be there, sitting in the corner watching him the whole time.

“Thanks for the offer…” he says and quickly excuses himself. Tanishi has his second match anyway.

—

Talking to Kai-senpai seems like a terrible idea, knowing that he knew nothing anyway. And besides, he was busy having his right hand be put through its paces by Chinen and by the look of the fifth deuce they were entering, it was going to be a long wait.

Hirakoba-senpai is nearby though, fussing over his hair and watching the match.

All his instincts tell him not to talk to him, because surely only bad things can come out of it. Hirakoba doesn’t have a good track record with girls. Aragaki knows he’s dated plenty and had even walked around the corner to find him kissing them a few times before. But they were always dumped quickly enough.

Hirakoba has always waved it off saying they were making him choose between them or tennis, or his grandmother had ranted at them for being gold diggers and prostitutes and they’d left very quickly.

“Have you ever kissed someone, Aragaki?” Hirakoba asks him all of three sentences in and yes, this was definitely a bad idea.

Aragaki doesn’t answer him, which Hirakoba of course takes as a negative. There’s an arm slung around his shoulder and Hirakoba pokes his cheek.

“You should practice kissing, so you don’t embarrass yourself on your date.”

“Maybe I’ll ask Kai-senpai…”

“If you want to feel like your mouth is being licked by a dog, sure.”

… That wasn’t where he was going with that, but Aragaki grimaces. Thankfully he’s saved by Kite calling for Hirakoba to start his next match and Kite is moving to pick up his tennis racquet, clearly going to play. Hirakoba sighs and prods Aragaki in the bottom lip before he lets go to start.

—

He catches Shiranui just before practice ends and everyone is heading into the tennis club room to shower and change.

“Tomoya,” he says, which makes the other boy stop. He doesn’t use given names at school usually, but he needs to get Shiranui’s complete attention.

He takes a deep breath and tries to think how to say all this. It’s been a long practice session.

“Kite-buchou told me to just think of nationals and girls aren’t important. And Tanishi-senpai told me to go on the date and he’d give me a discount. And then Hirakoba-senpai was saying I should practice kissing, but not with Kai-senpai because apparently he kisses like a dog.”

The words tumble out, more messy than he would have liked and probably made no sense and it was belatedly then that he realised he’d never told Shiranui about the letter in the first place.

Shiranui is silent for a very long moment and Aragaki doesn’t know what to say. There’s so much obvious confusion on his face and eventually Aragaki breaks the silence.

“I got confessed to by a girl today,” he adds helpfully and Shiranui suddenly fluffs, turning around.

“Don’t talk to me about girls.” And then he hurries off the tennis courts, leaving Aragaki there alone staring at his quickly retreating back.

—

He’s the last to leave the changing rooms that afternoon and Aragaki scuffs his toes against the ground. Shiranui is probably already running back home without waiting for the bus together like they normally do and Aragaki sighs.

It’s only then that he realises that Chinen is still there, hunched over the well-tended garden near the club house.

… It’s worth a try.

“Chinen-senpai, can I talk to you?” he asks and Chinen looks up, his eyes wide and Aragaki can’t tell if he’s surprised or if his eyes are just… wider for some other reason.

Chinen nods and pats the edge of the garden and Aragaki reluctantly sits down, looking at the very green plants in the bed. There’s even a few gouya and he wonders how long it took Chinen to get them to such a big size.

There’s silence and Chinen is kind of relaxing to be around, though he’d never admit that to Shiranui. There’s no pressure for him to talk as the other male just pats at the dirt.

“I got confessed to by a girl today,” he says and Chinen nods at him. He hadn’t been there, but no doubt he’d heard about it by now.

“I don’t know what to do. Everyone’s giving me conflicting advice.”

And surely Chinen had no better advice to give him, he realised. He didn’t think the other male had been on any dates or any experience with girls.

Chinen sighs and sits back on his heels. He’s still very tall, even like that and Aragaki stares at Chinen’s growing roots from his bleached white section. No doubt one of his senpai would bleach it again soon.

“You should see if you like someone before hanging out with them…” Chinen says eventually and he nods to himself. “That’s what I do.”

Chinen stands up and picks up his watering can before patting Aragaki on the head. “You’re nice to hang out with.”

And without saying anything else, Chinen was wandering off. In the direction of the tap to fill up his watering can, Aragaki realised.

… He doesn’t think Chinen-senpai actually knew what he was talking about, but… it was the best advice and was logical. Aragaki sighs and stands up too.

Now the next challenge was trying to find out who the actual girl was.


	5. Chapter 5

It came as no surprise that Kai managed to track down the mysterious girl that sent Aragaki the confession note. It hadn’t been hard, he said, as he leaned across Hirakoba’s desk to tell him.

And… of course he was going to go and investigate what this girl was like. He was curious and they all, on some level, cared about the wellbeing of their youngest teammate.

Hirakoba pushed his chair back at lunch and him and Kai left the classroom.

Kite wasn’t interested. He said so quite blatantly as they cornered him in his classroom. “Don’t do anything stupid,” he said and Hirakoba tried not to smile too much as he noticed most of Kite’s attention was on Kai as he said it.

On days that they didn’t have a team lunch, Chinen and Tanishi usually vanished off together somewhere and Hirakoba poked his head into Chinen’s classroom to see the boy’s usual spot at the back of the classroom to be absent. They were probably outside, then, enjoying the sunshine.

They ran into Shiranui as they were double tracking back past Kite’s classroom and Kai grabbed onto the boy’s arm. “We’re looking after Aragaki’s health and wellbeing,” he said and that was really all Shiranui needed before he followed behind them.

He really was too easy sometimes. But Hirakoba would admit that the loyalty to each other was kind of sweet, no matter how much he teased them about it.

The girl was a second year, he learned. She was also in the classroom next to Aragaki. He had a feeling the other boy was having lunch probably with Yamashiro today and Hirakoba looked around the door of the classroom as they passed, but he couldn’t see the two dark heads together.

“That’s her,” Kai said, pointing out the girl. She was sitting with a group of friends having her lunch and Hirakoba didn’t even hesitate as he walked into the classroom, heading straight for her.

Kai was following behind, Hirakoba didn’t need to even glance back to check, but he did anyway, to see Kai pulling Shiranui in behind him as well.

“Tamagusuku-san,” Hirakoba said, smiling as she looked up at him. She looked surprised, obviously confused and maybe just a bit terrified. “May we talk to you for a moment?”

Of course there was no need to wait for an answer. He wasn’t about to take no for an answer anyway before Kai butted in.

“You’re the one that sent our Aragaki a love note, right?”

That was obviously news to her friends, who twittered to each other and watched on and Hirakoba felt no sympathy for the girl who was going a bit red now. He just looked critically at her and turned his head to look at Kai.

“She’s not good enough. Eishirou’s not going to approve, she’s weak-willed. She’ll just distract him from training and Nationals.” Hirakoba rolled his eyes a bit at that.

Kai nodded thoughtfully. “Could be a gold digger though…” he turned to look at the girl and hung off Hirakoba’s shoulder to lean a bit closer. “You know, if you’re chasing Aragaki for his money, you should go after Rin instead. He’s got so much more.”

That brought Hirakoba up short and he looked incredulously at Kai, though he made no movement to push him off him. Instead, he looked down at the girl who was clearly trying to think of some way to respond to all of this.

“I’m not interested. She’s not my type, she’s not pretty enough.”

Though considering he judged every girl against his sister, perhaps that was a bit mean.

He supposed she looked like someone who would be Aragaki’s type. Kind of cute, in a next-door kind of way… but he could do better. The fact that she hadn’t managed to even tell them to go away was saying something too.

He raised his eyebrow and pretended to consider her for a while longer. “She looks like she’d be an even worse kisser than you, Yuujirou,” he said teasingly and laughed to himself as he felt Kai puff up at that.

“I’m not…! Eishirou’s been teaching me, I don’t kiss like a dog anymore.”

That made Hirakoba pause and all thoughts of this girl in front of them completely vanished as he looked at Kai. “I’m sorry, what?”

“I’ll prove it to you after training.”

He knew logically that Kai was just… miswording things as usual and it wasn’t like Kai was practising kissing with Kite. Although, he did logically tell himself that Kite being Kite, was probably quite a good kisser and could be an effective teacher.

Still, he pushed down this weird spot a jealousy that churned in his stomach just at the idea.

“I’m not interested,” he said, pushing Kai away with a hand on his face. “I’ve got an omiai tonight, I don’t need your slobber on my face.”

He glanced one last time at the girl before he turned around and headed for the door. He’d done his job, he’d investigated the girl and found her severely lacking. Kai still seemed hung up on things though as he hurried after, grabbing onto Hirakoba’s arm.

“What do you mean, omiai?”

Hirakoba tried not to smirk too much as he pulled his arm free. It had been a lie, but it always managed to ruffle Kai’s feathers if he made some kind of mention of it. Even better was when he refused to clarify questions like that.

He heard Shiranui talk as they were leaving - the other boy hadn’t followed behind them, he realised.

“Please don’t hurt my friend, okay?”

Hirakoba sighed and shook his head a bit. Of course Shiranui was still going with that. What a one tracked mind.


	6. Chapter 6

Kai was coming over that afternoon after training, for them to frown over their science assignment together. It was on oceanography and looking at looking at the different wavelengths of the waves on the shore.

They were both well aware of the quickly approaching due date and it had been Kai’s panicked suggestion that lunch time. Kite was long done with the assignment because of course he was and they both agreed that there was no chance of him helping them.

Chinen would have helped gladly, but his and Tanishi’s classes were doing chemistry instead of geology this term and he just shrugged unhelpfully.

They were chatting about the practice matches they’d done today and the different doubles combinations Kite was trying out for most of the walk back to Hirakoba’s place. It was a short walk, just a few minutes and Hirakoba barely stopped as he keyed in the code to open the gate, shutting it behind them.

And then the words died halfway through a sentence as he spotted a sign on the front door, in his grandmother’s impeccable calligraphy.

No Dogs Allowed.

He briefly closed his eyes and sighed, shoving a hand into Kai’s face to push his gaze away from the front door before he could spot it.

Not that he could really avoid it as he opened the front door and of course his grandmother was sitting in the front room, drinking tea and reading the news for the day.

“Grandma, did you put the sign on the door?” he asked and she just looked at him, raising one eyebrow.

He sighed again and toed off his shoes, dropping his bags and heading into the room. “Did you put the sign up on the door?” he repeated, switching languages. Of course, she refused to speak Japanese in front of any of his friends and still pretended, like she had for years, that she didn’t understand it so she could ignore them if they tried to talk to her.

She turned his attention to Kai who was hovering awkwardly in the doorway, looked at them, and then pointedly at the still open front door and the sign before turning back to her tea.

She hated Kai the most out of all of his friends.

“He’s here to work on our science assignment. Do you want me to fail science?”

His grandmother looked critically at him again and then at Kai. “You’re still studying oceanography aren’t you? Surely the dog can’t be better at that than me. I’ll help you instead.”

It was so hard to not just walk away from this conversation right now.

“Grandma, he’s my science partner,” he tried so hard to be patient right now. But her endless war against his friends really was getting very tiring. “He needs to help me with it.”

“He’s not Okinawa enough. He can’t know more about the water than you. You’re just going to be helping him along and disadvantaging yourself.”

He had to bite his tongue to stop himself from reminding her that he was half blood and less okinawan than Kai was. Any sort of reminder about that usually resulted in her getting upset and angry about his father and he didn’t need that right now.

Hirakoba turned to look helplessly at Kai, who looked just confused. Sometimes he wished Kai was more like Kite, who at least had managed to (possibly) impress his grandmother with his own fluency in the native language.

It didn’t stop her from saying he was a pimp and trying to turn her grandson into a prostitute though.

“He’s from an Okinawan family,” he tried, so hard. “He’s been here his whole life.”

But he knew that no matter what he said, it wouldn’t be good enough. It was probably just easier to admit defeat, turn around and just head silently up into his bedroom with Kai.

He heard footsteps coming down the stairs then and he closed his eyes and made himself breathe out. Of course his sister had to appear then.

“Oh, hey Kai.”

His grandmother heard her too, unfortunately.

“Get away from him! He might have rabies!” she shouted and Hirakoba tried so hard to not sink into the floor.

“Grandma, I’m going now. I’ll be done by dinner,” he said and she eyeballed him as he made his very quick exit from the room.

His sister was talking to Kai and since he looked neither angry or upset, he assumed she hadn’t given him a translation of what had been said. He grabbed her by the arm and gave her his most pained expression.

“Can you spend time with her? She’s doing the moody thing again and I have work to do,” he asked, switching back to normal Japanese.

“Sorry, I’m heading out with friends.”

“Any male friends are just after your virginity and money!” his grandmother shouted from the other room he gestured in her direction pointedly before grabbing onto Kai and pulling him away to head further into the house.

At the very least his sister would hopefully take down the sign.

Hirakoba shut the door to his bedroom and Kai placed his bags down to get comfortable.

… He was exhausted.


	7. Chapter 7

Kai was jealous of Rin and his girlfriend.

Not of the girl herself; this particular one, anyway, she was noisy and clingy and seemed to have some strange expectation that Rin spend time with her after practice, which all of them disliked.

There didn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason to Rin’s series of girlfriends and who he actually agreed to date - Kai thought he’d seen him with a _guy_ once, but that had fizzled out very quickly and beyond the few awkward encounters in the hallway Kai had had, nothing had happened.

No, it wasn’t the girls themselves, though there’d been a few who Kai had admitted to himself were very pretty, it was the small smile on Rin’s face when he replied to text messages, the dates he _knew_ the blond went on and… the fact that these dates cut into important team time.

At least until Rin started blowing the girls off, usually when the relationships were about to go sour, impatiently waving off the girls before running to jump on Chinen’s back or loop his arm around Kai’s shoulders to laugh and drag him off to the beach on the way home from school.

He’d heard the fights. They’d _all_ heard the fights. Rin never seemed overly bothered by them, maybe playing a bit more aggressively than usual as he stepped onto the courts in the aftermath.

Kai stared at the back of Rin’s head that day in class. It was still damp and sticking to his neck, from them skipping their morning classes to go swimming. And then he saw Rin pull out his phone to reply to a message and even from the seat behind him, Kai could see the love heart icon. He slammed his hands down on the table, completely forgetting for a wild moment that he was still in the middle of class.

There was silence around them and Kai sank into his seat, waving his hand apologetically at the teacher and tried not to notice people staring at him still even as the lesson recommenced.

“Oi, Rin,” Kai said, leaning over his desk to prod the boy in the back the moment the lunch bell rang.

Rin looked at him in surprise and Kai’s eyes narrowed at the sight of the phone out again.

“It’s not team lunch today, is it?”

“No, but—“

“Oh good.” Before Kai could say anything, Rin got up and patted him on the head. “See you after lunch.”

Kai spotted the girl hanging outside the door of the classroom as Rin headed out and he clenched his fingers together before he stomped out to head to another classroom.

He found Kite easily enough, staring at some kind of report and there was no change in his expression as Kai flopped down in the chair in front of him and started to complain.

“He’s got another one, Eishirou. That’s _three days_ since he broke up with the last one.”

“I fail to see why you have such an issue with this, Kai-kun,” Kite glanced up at him over the papers and then back down. “It’s not interfering with Hirakoba-kun’s tennis.”

“Because it’s ruining _team time_ ,” he said insistently, reaching out to whack Kite on the arm for emphasis. That barely got a twitch out of him. “He’s breaking up the team, Eishirou, You need to do something about this.”

“No.”

Kai put his head down on the desk and for a long moment there was nothing, and then he heard Kite sigh.

“If it bothers you, you should tell Hirakoba-kun yourself.”

“Why can’t you do it?”

Kite spared him half a glance over the papers again and that was… really all the answer he needed.

And that was not helpful at all and Kai just sighed. 

—

He didn’t have a chance to talk to Rin again until training that afternoon, but his mood was ruined by the appearance of that stupid girl again, hanging outside the courts and watching.

It always started like this, until they realised that Rin never really paid them any attention while he was playing tennis and some of them realised they didn’t like seeing their _boyfriend_ hanging off other boys all the time.

“Your _girlfriend’s_ here,” Kai said, sidling up to Rin.

They were watching Tanishi and Chinen be put through their paces by Shiranui and Aragaki. For some reason, even though Kite was standing across the court from them and had definitely seen them doing nothing, they hadn’t been yelled at yet.

Rin turned and glanced at the girl and Kai noted the cool disinterest of his expression that usually spelled the early end of a relationship.

“She’ll leave soon enough.”

“You don’t even like her! You should just tell her to leave already,” Kai blurted suddenly and he thought he heard Shiranui curse as he missed an easy shot and Rin looked at him in surprise.

“She’s just watching, Yuujirou. Unless it’s putting you off your game to have a female observer.”

Kai ignored the teasing lilt to Rin’s voice and the way he leaned closer with an all too smug grin on his face. It definitely didn’t bother him… well, it did, because of who she was. But any other girl didn’t bother him. But that wasn’t the problem here and Kai pushed it to the side as he continued to bull his way through the conversation.

“She doesn’t even know you. She’s just pretending to like you for your money!”

And suddenly he realised he’d gone too far, staring at the expression on Rin’s face. The match hadn’t recommenced behind them and as Kai turned around to look at them, he realised Kite was starting to approach their side of the court. 

“ _Excuse me_?”

Kai took an automatic step back but it didn’t help as Rin grabbed him by the front of the shirt and with an angry huff, started pulling him out of the tennis courts.

All too quickly, he found himself pushed up against the side of the tennis club house, staring at an extremely angry Rin. An angry Rin that Kai hadn’t seen since they’d overheard some classmates making comments about his sister.

Said angry Rin who now laughed and the hands in Kai’s shirt relaxed a little. “I want to punch you. But you’ll probably just forget it straight away.”

“Oi—“

But before he could say anything else, Rin’s hands were clenched in the front of his shirt again and there were lips on his own and Kai stared wide eyed and uncomprehending.

And all too quickly… or not quickly enough, or just… it was suddenly _over_ and Rin was frowning at him again.

“ _Never_ say people date me for money ever again,” Rin said, whacking Kai on the chest with the back of his hand. “Stupid idiot.”

Rin stomped off straight after that, leaving Kai to gape after him, still trying to figure out what had happened.

He heard Rin heading back onto the courts and Kai had no idea how long he was standing there behind the clubhouse for, listening to the sound of the rest of the team talking and playing. It wasn’t until Kite came around to stare at him and shake his head that Kai realised he still hadn’t moved.


	8. Chapter 8

Kai regularly finds himself sleeping over at Eishirou’s place. It’s never intentional, really.

Just sometimes, he lies in bed staring at the ceiling and can’t get to sleep, or he wakes up in the middle of the night from a nightmare.

His house doesn’t help, with the sounds of his brother tapping away at his keyboard just next door and the clattering of his sister’s blinds on the windowsill because she always sleeps with her window open.

It had started off as sort of a joke, a flash back to old days from elementary school when he’d sleep over at Eishirou’s house, but it seems normal now to just grab his phone and head all of three streets away to Eishirou’s house.

Sometimes he thinks the fact that Eishirou’s window is never locked is a sign the other boy doesn’t mind, but he only ever gets grumpy looks whenever he raises the point.

Kai wriggles under the covers, squashing up close to Eishirou who jerks awake at the jostling.

“It’s too hot, I can’t sleep,” he complains and Eishirou kicks his legs.

“It’s more hot with you here, Yuujirou.”

Eishirou’s voice is slurred but he still manages to be grumpy as he shuffles across and gives Kai a bit more room.

And like always, it’s so much easier to fall asleep when it’s in Eishirou’s room, even though there’s the other boy’s breathing in his ear as he falls asleep quickly enough again.

—

Kai’s mother calls the next day, as she always does whenever Kai isn’t in his bed in the morning. “Is my son there?”

Kite’s mother pokes her head into his room. It’s a little after when Kite normally wakes up, but she hasn’t seen him that morning, so he must still be asleep.

And true to form, there’s two lumps under the bed, though she can see one stirring from the sound of the door opening.

It’s Eishirou waking up, she can see the mess of brown hair poking up from under the covers still.

“Yes, he’s here. I’ll send him over after breakfast.”

—

When Eishirou mentions he has a lot of work to do with the upcoming tournament - something about organising a new training regiment and paperwork - Kai almost feels bad when he can’t get to sleep that night.

It seems wrong to go to Eishirou’s place, especially when he can poke his head out of his window and still see Eishirou’s bedroom light on. The boy needed to sleep, or else he’d be functioning on crankiness alone.

But Kai needs to sleep too and he sighs as he grabs his phone and heads out the door. It doesn’t take _too_ long to walk to Rin’s house, but he feels awkward as he climbs the wall around it. 

Thankfully Rin’s room is on the bottom floor and he hops in through the window easily enough, sliding into bed.

Kai is just closing his eyes, snuggling into Rin’s soft chest when he hears a shriek and Kai gets a solid punch to the face and he tumbles to the floor, hitting it hard.

There’s footsteps running towards them and the door slams open, the light flicks on.

“What the fuck, Yuujirou?!”

Rin’s standing at the door, puffy haired and naked. Kai blinks at him and then looks up to the bed to see Rin’s sister staring at him, pressing her hands to cover her… definitely not flat chest.

Why do the Hirakoba twins _both_ have to sleep naked?

Kai turns red and stares, even as his cheek throbs.

At least until Rin slaps a hand over his eyes and drags him away, down one room to his own.

There’s a fuss from Rin’s parents that gets waved away easily enough as they come to investigate the noise and Rin looks annoyed as he shoves Kai into his room and shuts the door behind them.

“I couldn’t sleep,” he complains as he snuggles next to Rin a few minutes later and Rin hits him with a pillow. “I didn’t deserve to be punched.”

His cheek still hurts. If he had to guess, Rin’s sister has a meaner punch than him.

“You tried to sneak into my sister’s _bed_ ,” Rin hisses at him. “You’re lucky I’m letting you sleep here at all.”

“It’s your fault your rooms are too similar,” he moans.

At least Rin had put on some pants before he’d hopped into bed with him. Though Kai blushes some more as Rin ends up octopusing around him as he falls asleep and Rin’s chest is definitely not as soft as his sister’s.

It’s very hard to fall asleep that night.

—

Kai’s mother calls Kite’s house first the next morning.

“Is my son there?”

Kite’s mother checks his room as per normal. She doesn’t think so though, Eishirou’s already been up for half an hour and was in the living room working through simple morning stances.

“No I haven’t seen him at all.”

Eishirou looks up at her and shakes his head as well, as though he knows exactly what she’s talking about.

“EIshirou hasn’t seen Yuujirou either.”

—

Kai’s mother calls Hirakoba’s family next. She’s a little worried, she knows that Hirakoba likes to sleep in and she doesn’t know about the rest of the household. Thankfully it’s Hirakoba’s mother that picks up.

“This is Kai—“

“Your son spent the night here.”

Well that answers things. She wonders how Hirakoba’s mother knew that - surely it was too early for either Kai or Hirakoba to be awake? And Eishirou’s mother always has to check in the bedroom, at least.

She arranges for Eishirou to take clothes to school for him, it seems like the easiest option.

—

Eishirou always seems to have a lot of work going on lately and Kai sighs again as he stares for hours at the ceiling. Going to Eishirou’s house really wasn’t an option - he’d seen the other boy look more and more tired the past few days.

Rin’s house… … definitely not. He still goes red whenever he passes Rin’s sister in the hallway, which has started up some unfortunate rumours in the tennis club.

Tanishi’s house isn’t too far from him though, so Kai heads off there.

It’s lucky he’s been there so many times, that he knows the way easily enough.

He has to knock at the door of the restaurant, even though he can see the closed sign. The kitchen light is still on though and Kai guiltily smiles at Tanishi’s father when he opens the restaurant door.

He’s in his pyjamas, he realises and Tanishi’s dad just takes a long look at him before shooing him inside.

There’s no words between them as he’s handed a pillow and a blanket and shown into Tanishi’s bedroom that he shares with his brother. There’s lot of snoring, but it’s easy enough to settle onto the floor and pull the blanket over him.

Maybe the snoring is soothing or something? Or the floor is particularly soft? But Kai has no worries falling asleep that night.

He quite likes Tanishi’s house, he decides.

At least until the morning when he gets stepped on by a half asleep older brother and he shouts and there’s a lot of panic in the bedroom that wakes up half the household.

—

It’s Tanishi’s mother that calls Kai’s mother that morning.

“Kai ended up staying over last night,” she says, even as Kai’s mother can hear the fussing of the huge Tanishi family all settling down for breakfast. “I’m going to feed him and then send him to school in some spare clothes.”

Kai’s mother sighs in relief. “I’ll get Eishirou to bring a uniform for him at school. Thank you for taking care of him.”

—

Eishirou’s busy, Rin’s out of town for a week with his grandmother and Tanishi’s having some big family thing that means his room will be more crowded than normal with his older brother’s son staying with them as well.

Kai picks at his fingernails as he considers his options. He supposes… Shiranui is an option, though he lives a bus ride away.

Kai looks at the time - the bus should still be running and maybe the trip will make him more tired?

He makes sure to grab his wallet this time at least and he sits, wide awake on the bus seat, ignoring the driver who gives him strange looks for his star print pyjama pants and jacket.

He knows where Shiranui’s house is, from the one time they’d all gone to his house to throw a surprise party. It takes a little while and the walking is making him tired at least.

Kai’s yawning and can barely keep his eyes open when he finally finds the “Shiranui Family” house and he climbs through the first open window he can find.

He doesn’t even really care that it’s the kitchen and there’s no pillow. Lying on the floor seems comfortable enough and he falls asleep there with no problems.

His sleep is only interrupted in the wee hours of the morning by a surprised shout and he gets hit over the head by a loaf of bread by Shiranui’s grandmother.

—

Kai’s sitting awkwardly at the breakfast table with Shiranui next to him as he listens to Shiranui’s grandfather call his house.

At least Shiranui had explained the situation well enough to his family as he’d come down to find Kai fending off blows from the loaf of bread.

He thought he understood where Shiranui’s endurance came from now.

—

He gets lost on the way to Chinen’s house.

It’s two bus rides that he manages to catch - thankful that this had happened early enough in the night that they were both still running - but he gets lost a few streets from the bus.

He hasn’t been to Chinen’s house enough to know the way and things look different without the lady walking her dog, or the vegetable shop that he thinks he might have passed, but it looks weird with the shutters all closed up.

Walking seems to make him tired, it seems. Perhaps he should try this more often when he’s at home.

Kai is just wandering aimlessly and a car pulls up next to him.

“Kai?!”

Kai blinks - it’s Chinen’s mother, still all done up and obviously on her way home from a late night at work.

“Hi. Can I come over?”

She doesn’t say anything, just leans over and opens the passenger door of her car for him to get into. He slides in - it’s nice and leather and the seats are plush as he sinks into it.

“I’m sure Hiroshi’s in bed, but you can sleep on the couch,” he hears her say and he just mumbles sleepily and dozes off in the car.

He gets shaken awake just a few moments later to stumble into the house and he’s put to bed on the couch, pillow and blanket included. He barely remembers the transition though as he falls back asleep almost straight away, not hearing the sound of Chinen’s mother wandering around the house.

—

Kai’s woken up later by something tickling his face and he jerks away, batting it away with his hand.

It’s Chinen, looming over him and staring at him while he uses a piece of grass to tickle kai’s nose.

The other boy’s eyes are large and his hair’s already damp - has he already showered?

“Is anyone else here?” Chinen asks and he starts shredding the piece of grass between his fingernails.

Kai yawns and sits up properly. It’s still early morning and he can hear someone in the kitchen already.

“Just me.”

Chinen’s eyebrows are scrunching up together and he’s staring at Kai again. Kai fidgets with the blanket that he doesn’t quite remember being put over him that night.

“You get up too early,” he complains and flops back down and Chinen prods his face again.

“If you want to stay over, you have to train with my grandfather.”

…

It was not worth it to stay at Chinen’s house again.

—

Kai’s mother calls through the list of Higa members. Kite, Hirakoba, Tanishi, Shiranui… Chinen.

It’s a little girl that picks up this time and Kai’s mother blinks in surprise.

“Hello, this is Kai Yuujirou’s mother. Is my son there by any chance?”

The girl laughs and she thinks she can hear some shouting in the background.

“There’s a strange boy at our house this morning,” she says helpfully. “He’s being beaten up by my grandfather!”

“What does he look like?”

“Like a dog!”

Kai’s mother sighs in relief as she thanks the girl and hangs up. She needs to call Kite’s house to again organise another uniform, it seems.

—

Aragaki comes up to him at training that week and hands over a piece of paper. Kai blinks and looks at it - a phone number?

“What’s this for?”

He looks around suspiciously at the regulars - Chinen is playing against Tanishi, which is always fun to watch with their heights and reaches; Shiranui is refereeing a junior game; Eishirou is studiously ignoring them and Rin is watching them out of the corner of his eye and trying not to laugh.

Kai is automatically more suspicious.

“I’ve heard that Kai-senpai has been staying at everyone’s houses lately.”

… He was going to kill whoever’s been telling Aragaki that.

Kai looks at the phone number again, with an address revealing itself as he unfolds the paper again.

“I realised that you don’t have my home number, and I wouldn’t like your mother to be worried if she can’t find you and you’re at my house.”

Aragaki is smiling at him, but Kai is so sure it’s as close to a smirk as his kouhai is able to do in public. It doesn’t help that Kite is continuing to ignore them though he could surely hear it.

Sometimes Aragaki could be worse than Eishirou, Kai was pretty sure it was because the boy was spending way too much time with their captain getting tips.

“Thanks,” he says and carefully folds the paper up again. It can’t hurt, just in case, anyway.

Aragaki’s smile widens. “And don’t worry, Kai-senpai. I don’t have a sister you can confuse me with.”

Kai twitches and he turns to see Rin, who is starting to laugh behind his hand. It seems his question was answered.

“Hirakoba Rin, today you die!”

He thinks he sees Eishirou sigh and push up his glasses as he tackles a laughing Rin to the ground. Just for that, he was going to go back to Eishirou’s bed tonight.


	9. Chapter 9

It’s hard, shaking Seigaku’s hands and watching their path to nationals crumble beneath their feet.

Kai cries, the moment they get off the courts, crouching down on the ground while the team surrounds him as he presses his face into his knees and wails.

He plays that last point with Kikumaru over and over in his mind, the ball that he _should have won_ and it just makes him cry harder.

Someone gets down to hug him and it’s only when he feels arms much too long wrap around him that he realises it’s Chinen and he feels the other boy’s cheek press against his head.

They’re still in the middle of the pathway, but he doesn’t really care too much he decides. Chinen croons and rocks him back and forth until Kai’s hiding his face in his knees more out of embarrassment than any need to hide his tears.

—

Tanishi cries when he borrows Kite’s phone to call his parents.

“Kei!!! How did your match go?! We’re all waiting for you to get back so we can have a big celebration!”

He can hear his mother in the background demanding the phone so she can talk to him instead.

“We…”

His voice catches in his throat and his eyes are welling up. Thankfully he’s moved away from the team who have scattered to grieve in their own way.

“… We lost.”

It’s hard to admit over the phone, even worse is the silence that follows from his parents and Tanishi presses a hand against his eyes.

“I got tricked, mum.” 

And just like that, the floodgates open and he starts telling her everything, in no particular order about what had happened. About how stupid Hirakoba had gone off playing on his own, Eishirou had been overpowered, even Shiranui had been beaten at endurance.

He’s just incoherently shouting down the phone about Kai and the stupid doubles playing person when he feels arms wrap around him from the side.

Tanishi cuts off mid-word and turns to stare at Chinen.

Chinen is making odd humming noises now as he plasters himself to Tanishi’s side and pats him on the head.

“Kei? Are you there?”

His next breath is shaky and he pats Chinen on the head too.

“Yeah, I’m here. Hiroshi’s just…”

Chinen’s still humming away and Tanishi gives him a punch on the arm in a friendly way. Chinen just hugs him tighter.

—

Kite… doesn’t cry.

He knows his team will, he can see Kai still sniffling into a can of fizzy drink Kite had shoved into his hands a few minutes ago and he expects to get his phone back, quite a bit wetter than it should be from tears.

This isn’t like back in second year, when they’d lost because their senpai had been foolish and proud and refused to let them play where they might actually win.

They’d been… completely defeated. And the taste is bitter in his mouth as he takes his glasses off and cleans them.

All the long hours of training, the long matches they’d endured… 

The sheer overwhelming power of Tezuka still makes him sour. He should have at least grabbed _one_ victory for his team so they didn’t have to return to Okinawa completely humiliated.

He should have played better. Trained harder weeks ago.

He should have won.

Kite barely looks up as Chinen sits next to him, too close for the heat of the day, but Kite can’t bring himself to push him away.

“You played well today, Chinen-kun,” he says and he twitches a little as Chinen’s arms wrap around him from the side.

“You played very well too, Eishirou.”

Kite blinks and pushes his glasses back on his face.

“Thank you.”

The bottom of his glasses are fogging up again and it’s a little harder to see out of them. But even as Kite takes off his glasses to clean them again, it doesn’t help.

—

Shiranui sits and watches the next round of matches. The rest of the team have dissipated, off in their own worlds of grief.

He just feels numb.

It had been the first year that him and Gakki had played together and they’d been an awesome combination.

Playing doubles with Gakki had been as natural as swimming in the water ever was.

And now it was over. Before they’d even had a chance to really test their skills against opponents properly. Over now, as Shiranui moves into High school and leaves Gakki alone again.

The kid had been devastated when he’d been left alone in elementary school, Nui can only imagine what he’ll be like next year.

That thought is what makes a sob catch in Shiranui’s throat and he shakily inhales as he stares determinedly at the match in front of him. He could have beaten them, he thinks.

He scrubs at his eyes as he sees someone sit next to him and Shiranui flinches away as he looks at them and sees Chinen, staring at him, his face much too close for comfort.

“What are you doing here?”

Chinen doesn’t answer, but leans in to envelop Shiranui in a hug, even as he leans away further. It’s so awkward and Chinen cuddles him close, stroking his head and surely it’s not because it’s _Chinen_ , but Shiranui lets himself cry, just for a little bit.

The patting falters as Shiranui grabs the taller boy around the shoulders and hides his face in his chest.

No one else from Higa is around and this is only just for a second, just so he can hide his face and get it out of his system.

—

Hirakoba doesn’t cry. It really _sucks_ and he hates losing, but… they’d gotten to Nationals at least?

Kai had slurped through one, two cans of fizzy drink and Hirakoba had shoved a third at him to stop him from weeping more before he wandered off.

He tilts his chin and looks down his nose at people who try to comment on their loss. They’re not worth his time. Still, he hopes they find Tanishi, maybe they might get a fist to the face.

He makes a beeline to the shaded tree when he spots the flat haircut and purple uniform of Aragaki, stopping next to the boy and leaning down to look at him.

His eyes look a little red and he looks away from Hirakoba.

“Have you been crying all by yourself here, Koichi?” Hirakoba teases, prodding him in the cheek. “I didn’t think you were that passionate about your tennis to really care.”

“Go away, Hirakoba-senpai.”

That makes him pause and Hirakoba’s smile drops. He moves to sit down next to him and shuffles around to look properly at his face.

“Oh come on, it’s not that bad, there’s always next year.” And he’s sure that Kite was already planning new training regimes for them and it was going to be hell when they got back to school.

“I’m not _with_ you all next year.”

Aragaki is wiping his face again and Hirakoba freezes.

That was right.

Aragaki was a second year, sometimes… he forgot that.

Hirakoba stares and Aragaki takes a few angry breaths, still wiping his eyes. “It was my last match with Tomoya and we _lost_. And I can’t play with him next year because you’ll all be in high school and he’ll find a new partner and I’ll be alone in the club…”

The tears are coming freely now and Aragaki presses his palms against his eyes and Hirakoba hesitates before he places a hand on Aragaki’s back.

“Why couldn’t I have been a stupid premature baby like you, stupid Hirakoba-senpai… I could have been with everyone longer.”

For once, words fail him and he just rubs circles on Aragaki’s back, not sure what to say or do. Aragaki seems to have run out of words too, just taking angry breaths and crying.

Hirakoba looks up as he spots Chinen approaching and he stares at the most unexpected person behind him - Shiranui. What an odd combination.

“Hey, Gakki.”

Hirakoba watches as Shiranui pulls Aragaki up and they wander off together, the older boy’s arm around his shoulders.

Chinen folds himself into the spot next to Hirakoba on the grass and Hirakoba find himself being pulled into a hug.

There’s a hand on his head and Chinen is crooning to him.

“Don’t cry, Hirakoba.”

He elbows Chinen and sighs as he relaxes into the hug. “I’m not crying, you idiot.” He laughs a little. “Go comfort someone who actually needs it.”

But Chinen doesn’t pull away and the crooning and hugging doesn’t stop. And Hirakoba really can’t bring himself to shove Chinen away again to make him stop.


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This has references to the previous ficlet in it :)

The bitterness at having lost at Nationals fades a little as they sit and watch the finals play out and the reality of exactly what school they’d challenged - and even found themselves equal to at times - sinks in.

Kite’s expression is unreadable as he watches Tezuka get equally matched by and then overcome by Sanada Genichirou. Aragaki sees his fingers clench into a fist as they otherwise rest on his lap, Kite’s eyes never leaving the Centre court.

Hirakoba watches impassively during the Fuji vs Niou match, idly flexing his wrist when he thinks their attentions are all focused on the tennis in front of them. 

Aragaki himself sits and twists his fingers together as he watches the doubles combination of Inui and Kaidou extend to heights that he hadn’t seen in their match against them and tries to swallow the bitter realisation. He and Tomoyoa… hadn’t been considered enough of a challenge to warrant going all out against.

And he hates that realisation.

At least he is happy to join Shiranui in elbowing Tanishi during the Singles 1 match, as Echizen struggles against Yukimura and eventually topples the Child of God.

Tanishi who, for a few sets, had overpowered Echizen completely.

For a few hours, it’s almost like they didn’t mind that they lost, a fair cry from how they’d been just after the match itself. It made packing up their bags and and heading to the airport that little bit easier.

The rest of the club had left earlier, immediately after their loss and it’s only the regulars now that board the plane together. In one regard, Aragaki’s glad it’s just them. There’s less jostling and noise, and less open moodiness, the regulars much better at hiding their emotions than the others.

Aragaki can see the tension in Kite’s pose as he sits in the middle of the row, ramrod straight just before take off, and throughout the entire flight, even with Kai next to him pushing at the entertainment screen. Worried about heading back to school, Kite carries the weight of all of them on his shoulders. Aragaki isn’t sure if he’s seen Kite relax at all since their match against Seigaku.

Hirakoba sits with his head resting against the window and Aragaki doesn’t know if he’s dozing or staring at the clouds beneath them. Chinen looks uncomfortable as he scrunches up in the seat, his knees hitting the back of the seat in front of him and Aragaki knows he’s too polite to stretch his legs into anyone else’s space or the aisle. He’s reading though, some kind of horror book from the cover.

Tanishi and Yamashiro are playing some kind of bowling game against each other on the entertainment screens across the aisle. He doesn’t know which of them is winning, but he knows they’ve been asked to lower their voices at least twice by the flight attendants.

Shiranui is staring out the window, tapping his fingers against the armrest. He doesn’t like flying and during turbulence, the fingers stop tapping to grip the armrest tightly. Aragaki idly pats Shiranui on the arm and shakes his head as his friend glances questioningly over at him.

Aragaki thinks about what has happened, staring at the back of the seat in front of him, much like he thinks Kite is doing.

They were the first team from their school in a very long time, that had gone to Nationals. They were the first team from their entire _area_ that had gone that far. That much had been told to them before they’d left.

And they hadn’t even made it to the quarter finals.

“Do you think we could have trained harder?” he asks no one in particular as they head out the gate into the airport.

Perhaps if they’d trained an extra hour every day, in the year leading up to Nationals… or if they hadn’t been so easy to listen to Kai wanting to go get burgers, or Tanishi inviting them over to dinner… would they have gotten further?

“Don’t dwell on it too much, Koichi,” Hirakoba says, cuffing Aragaki over the head as he walks past. “Regret isn’t attractive.”

—

The sky is darkening when they finally get their bags and head out of the terminal. They have to go to school the next day and they call out farewells to each other as they go their separate ways.

“There’s no morning training tomorrow,” Kite says, though Aragaki’s sure that most of them will be at school early anyway.

Kite and Kai get onto a bus together while Aragaki, Shiranui and Chinen wait for their own. Kai waves at them through the window and mouths something that Aragaki just shakes his head at to say he doesn’t understand.

He doesn’t know if Kai-senpai understands that though as he looks pleased enough as he sits back and the bus drives off.

Hirakoba had been the first to go, heading to the car parking instead of following them to the buses. “See you all tomorrow,” he says, wheeling his bag behind him, a figure in the distance waiting for him.

Tanishi and Yamashiro’s bus is in a slightly different area and they head off there together. “I’ll call you tonight, Hiroshi! Don’t fall asleep on the bus,” Tanishi calls out as they leave and Chinen lifts his hand up in farewell.

Aragaki doesn’t sleep well that night, worrying about the reaction of the school. Saotome-coach and the rest of the club had been back for a day extra than them and he knows Kite has been concerned about what impact that would have had on their arrival back.

They know they had done… better than expected and seen the level Seigaku had played at in the end. And just getting to Nationals had been a miracle that even though they’d spoken about it, it’s almost as if most of them hadn’t believed it when it had happened.

He doesn’t know if the rest of the club had seen it that way.

It doesn’t help that he can’t just wander to the next room like he could at training camps or at Nationals and talk to Shiranui or Kai-senpai about it. He likes being back in his own room, but it’s infinitely lonelier there too, staring at the dark ceiling.

He settles by sending a message to Yamashiro instead, though he knows the boy will be fast asleep with five pillows on top of his head by now and not hear the buzz of his phone or see the glow of his screen.

_I’m worried about tomorrow_.

—

Aragaki freezes in the doorway of his classroom as people look up and notice he’s there. It was strange coming in so late to school and not having to head to the tennis courts. Though he hadn’t woken up any later, instead having a leisurely breakfast.

They’ve been away for an extra day and his friends in his class scramble to interrogate him.

“I can’t believe you went to Tokyo for Nationals!”

“How was it? Did you see anyone amazing there?”

“Not even the volleyball club made it past regionals this year.”

“You might even get a girlfriend this year, Aragaki!”

“How did you go?”

The questions rush over him and Aragaki just lets himself laugh as he moves to his desk to put his bag down and sit down. He wonders if the other members of the tennis club have received the same sort of greeting and he tries not to laugh too much as he thinks about how they would’ve all reacted.

He wonders if Chinen-senpai had hit his head on the doorframe in a bid to escape. Or if Kite had ignored them all and left Tomoya to fend all the questions off.

It’s not their dedicated team lunch day, so he’ll have to wait until after school to ask them all.

—

Saotome isn’t there for afternoon practice and Kite’s jaw is clenched as training continues as usual and the man continues to be absent.

They should have expected this and the man hadn’t always been present anyway. But it was still unsettling to see the empty bench on the courts where the coach had sat.

He notices his senpai are determinedly not looking in that direction anyway.

Aragaki follows their lead and tries not to think about it, focusing on training instead.

Which is just as bad to face as he partners up with Yamashiro to practise combinations against Hirakoba and Kai. He won’t really partner up with his senpai again for doubles, he realises and he grips his racquet tightly as he talks quietly to Yamashiro.

They’d both learned a lot by playing in a lot of different doubles combinations with their senpai and their own combination had gotten a lot stronger over the season as well as a result.

And they agree to show them that now. They aren’t going to make any practice match against them easy at all on their senpai.

“This is just a practice session, Aragaki!” Kai says as a shot fires past him.

Aragaki bites back his automatic reply - maybe they shouldn’t have settled for so many _just practice sessions_ and just smiles at Kai instead as he heads back to the base line. Maybe he’s channeling Chinen-senpai a little and his cheeks hurt a bit as he smiles. But it’s worth it as Kai looks a little weirded out.

A part of him knows what’s coming when Kite calls training to a close and they all line up.

But it doesn’t come and there’s the standard dismissal with no mention of anything from Kite. It’s almost like they’ve gone back to before Regionals or something. 

The ranks break as they all head to the club room and the first years go to tidy up the courts. Aragaki stands there and stares at Kite’s back, feeling the push of the other club members as they go past him.

—

“Aragaki-kun, come with me,” Kite says, poking his head into his classroom during lunchtime.

The rest of the team are there too and as a team, they head to the staffroom. But it’s only him and Kite that go in, to talk to Uehara-sensei, who’s in charge of all the clubs and their funding.

There had been hushed whispers in the senpai’s rooms late at night about how them doing well at Nationals could ensure better funding for the team into the future. Kite hadn’t said anything openly to the second years, though Aragaki heard them as he pressed his ear against the wall between their rooms and Yamashiro sleepily rolled over and told him to go to sleep already.

And he can practically feel the anticipation rolling off Kite as he stands there, though his face is as controlled as ever and he just stares at the teacher.

“Your tennis team did admirably to get to the Nationals this year,” Uehara-sensei says, turning in his seat to look at them. There’s other teachers in the staffroom and Aragaki glances around at them before focusing on the man in front of them.

“Thank you Uehara-sensei,” Kite says, dipping his head a bit. “We worked very hard.”

“However, after reviewing the situation with Saotome-sensei, we have agreed that there will be no additional funding for the tennis club. While your achievement is impressive, it doesn’t excuse your team’s behaviour there.”

Aragaki isn’t even sure Kite hears the second part of Uehara-sensei’s words as he glances at the other male. There’s a definite stiffening to Kite’s shoulders and he looks to be gritting his teeth.

Aragaki can see Saotome-coach sitting nearby and he tries not to notice the stretching smile on the teacher’s face, or how Kite’s fingers clench into fists.

Hitting a ball into Rokkaku’s coach.

Rebelling against Saotome-coach.

Hitting Saotome.

Refusing to leave before watching the finals…

He can practically see Kite replaying all of those moments as he stands there and Kite closes his eyes briefly, exhaling slowly.

“Thank you for your consideration, sensei,” Kite says after a long pause and Aragaki bobs his head as well, following Kite out as he walks, faster than normal to the door.

He realises suddenly, how much he hates the way everyone looks at them as they come out of the door, a strange anticipation on their faces, knowing that they’re about to crush it.

Kite takes a deep breath and Aragaki makes sure he’s closed the door properly behind them.

“They’re not giving us anything,” Kite says and there’s a noticeable change in the air around them. Disbelief, anger… glances at the door that Aragaki’s positioned himself in front of. “We behaved inappropriately.”

And that’s all Kite says before he walks off, pushing past them. Hirakoba’s the only one that moves. He hurries to walk next to him and Aragaki hears the “Do you want me to do something about it, Eishirou?”.

There’s barely a change in pace and Kite just pushes Hirakoba away, making the other boy stop short. “ _Not now_ , Hirakoba-kun.”

There’s just silence now, as Kite’s footsteps head down the hallway and all of them don’t know where to look. 

Now that he thinks about it, he understands.

They had almost expected more funding for their club, with how well they’d done. _Any_ extra funding would be better than what they had now. And perhaps that’s one of the reasons the senpai had fought so hard, to try and make things better for the next years as part of their legacy, that none of the other previous third years had tried to do for them.

And they’d ruined it.

Hirakoba’s the one that finally breaks the silence.

“ _Fuck_ this. _Fuck_ Eishirou.” And then he’s gone too, pulling his phone out of his pocket and messaging furiously as he stomps away.

It’s Kai that starts laughing, a bubbling laugh that sounds like he’s choking back tears as well and he pushes himself up from leaning against the wall. “Lunch is nearly over. We should… don’t forget training this afternoon.” He’s not looking at any of them and he doesn’t hide the frustration as well as Kite does as his voice shakes.

They take that as their cue to leave, though there’s a noticeable slump to everyone’s shoulders as they do. Kai doesn’t go with them and Aragaki looks back as they round the corner, to see Kai crouching on the ground in a pose that looks all too familiar to when they’d lost against Seigaku.

—

Saotome still doesn’t appear at training as the week stretches on and it’s almost like Kite doesn’t care anymore whether the man shows up or not. Certainly he doesn’t head to the staffroom to drag the man there, like he used to. And beyond a glance at the bench every day, he shows no recognition of them having a coach in the first place.

And none of them really do now.

Besides, it’s always been Kite who stands at the front of the club when they have a final meeting before dismissal, Saotome leaving early if he’d even shown up that day at all.

It’s different today though, as the third years line up facing the rest of the club as well and Aragaki hates how Shiranui’s eyes are watching him and the mixed expressions on his senpai.

Kai looks like he’s going to cry, twisting his shirt in his fingers and his lip is shaking. Even with the way he’s got his head bowed, the brim of his cap doesn’t quite hide it.

Chinen’s squinting at something at the distance, and his fingers are clenching and unclenching where they’re resting. He’s never seen Chinen-senpai cry, he realises.

Tanishi is breathing very deeply and Aragaki knows he’s already cried once this practice, his swings getting wild and having to sit at the side after Kite yelled at him.

Hirakoba looks… regretful, almost, with a strange smile on his face. Though it vanishes when he catches Aragaki looking at him and his senpai’s eyebrow raises slightly.

Kite is silent for a long time and no one else speaks as he looks over them.

“… Us third years are graduating today.”

They’d been there so much longer than the other third years before them, who would have graduated from the club weeks before this as they fell in prefecturals or regionals. It was almost as if they’d all forgotten that eventually they too would have to leave.

“Training is over.”

—

Aragaki lingers in the club room, watching everyone leave before him. 

Kai had taken over, with Kite leaving the moment he stopped talking. It had been Kai who had handed over the captaincy to Aragaki after a few minutes of just standing there crying in front of the entire club. It had been Kai who congratulated all of the club for their hard work that year between shaky mouthfuls of air.

They’d all cried at Nationals, but they do again, with promises to come back and still play tennis with them and joking about how some of them shouldn’t, because they needed all the spare time to study for exams.

And then it was over.

Aragaki stays, as the last locker of the regulars is cleaned out and Hirakoba shuts the door of it.

“I thought you said that being regretful is unattractive, Hirakoba-senpai,” Aragaki says and Hirakoba looks at him in surprise.

“I think all of the third years can be regretful at least this once,” Hirakoba says, reaching out to ruffle Aragaki’s hair and letting his hand drop back to his side when Aragaki dodges it. “This is probably more important to us than graduating junior high.”

“You were the one that said there’s always next year.” For all of them to meet up again as first years in high school and play again together. Without him though, he tries not to think. They’ve already had this conversation before.

“Ah…” Hirakoba trails off and grimaces.

There’s a long silence between them and Aragaki scans his face, from the regretful smile that’s reappeared and the way Hirakoba’s wrist moves slightly.

“… You’re not playing tennis with them next year, are you, Hirakoba-senpai.” It’s a statement, not a question.

Hirakoba looks decidedly uncomfortable at that and he picks up his tennis bag, slinging it over his shoulder, before moving to head out of the club room.

“Keep it a secret from the others, please,” Hirakoba says and he laughs a little. “I’ve seen enough of Yuujirou crying to last me until the end of the year, at least.”

Aragaki frowns. “I don’t think the others will let you just not join the club with them. You heard Kai-senpai today, we’re a family.” That had been blubbering, rambling incoherency though, but he did know Kai would probably drag the rest of the team - himself and Yamashiro included the next year - to the courts to make them all sign up again.

Hirakoba’s strange regretful smile is back and he adjusts the strap of his tennis bag on his shoulder. “That assumes I’m at the same high school as them all next year. And that everyone else stays together as well.”

Aragaki knows the third years have secrets between themselves that they didn’t openly share with the others. He and Yamashiro have them as well, keeping their secrets within their year group. And he would have been happy to be the private ear for one of his senpai, any time.

But this was one secret that he didn’t like learning about. Especially now.

Which of the team had spoken to Hirakoba about also going to a different high school…?

Hirakoba breaks his thoughts before he can start going through a list, nudging his elbow into Aragaki’s side. He smiles as Aragaki looks at him. “Don’t forget to lock up now. And don’t be late to training tomorrow, Aragaki-buchou.”


End file.
